Over the last year or so I’ve been making a rather consistent argument that Attorney General Jerry Brown needs to take some clear stands on behalf of the progressive values Californians share. This week he did exactly that, and deserves a ton of credit for it.
Brown stood up to the teabaggers, led by Assemblymember Dan Logue and Ted Costa, by refusing to give in to their desire to mislead the public in the labeling of their initiative to suspend AB 32. Logue and Costa call their plan the “California Jobs Initiative.” But here’s the title Brown gave them:
Suspends air pollution control laws requiring major polluters to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming until unemployment drops below specified level for full year.
Which is totally accurate. That is what the Logue/Costa initiative does. AB 32 is an air pollution control law. It regulates pollutants that cause global warming. And the initiative would suspend those rules until unemployment has dropped below 5.5% for an entire year.
When might that happen? Not anytime soon. The Obama Administration’s projections indicate we’ll be above 6% until 2015, and many economists project high unemployment will be with us for perhaps the whole decade. So this “suspension” will in fact be ongoing.
In the meantime California will lose thousands of jobs created by AB 32 in the up-and-coming green jobs sector. And of course, we’ll be sitting on our hands as global warming’s effects take hold.
What do Logue and Costa think of global warming? Here’s what Logue had to say on the initiative website:
AB32 is based heavily on the theory that global warming is a “man-made” condition. In recent weeks the “Climategate” scandal has revealed some very disturbing E-mails and information from the environmental science community. These leaks have revealed that reputable scientists and universities doctored their statistics and withheld evidence contrary to their own theories. They silenced dissenting opinion for political gain. In short, the “science” that CARB has based its decisions on has been found to be fraudulent.
In other words, Logue is California’s James Inhofe. Or, in Jerry Brown’s words as reported by Calbuzz:
As a political matter, Brown has hardly been neutral about AB32. In fact, when he was on KGO Radio last week he referred to people opposing the measure as “Neanderthals . . . who want to turn the clock backwards.”
And now the Neanderthals are angry. Led by John and Ken, the right-wing talk radio hosts from LA, they are reacting by spamming Jerry Brown’s Facebook page with their usual crap. It’s typical teabaggery – when you don’t get your way, throw a huge temper tantrum and show the world how ugly you really are.
Screw em. Jerry Brown, you got this one right. Well done. I hope you’ll continue to fight these Neanderthals all year, and show Californians that we would be lunatics to abandon AB 32 now.
Jerry Brown has taken positions that are at odds with my views, and the views of most participants of this blog, particularly with regard to taxes and criminal justice. But on the environment, Jerry Brown has always been progressive, and I expect will continue to be. I’m happy with this most recent move, though not at all surprised.
I expect Brown’s green credentials to feature prominently in his campaign, and I expect it will do a lot of good for him as a candidate.
I would like to see AB 32 amended where small business owners would be able to get assistance to get the equipment that would help with clean air, so we can keep jobs and revenue in California. I also would like to see Logue and Costa produce evidence of businesses being killed and jobs being lost due to AB 32 due to regulations or mandates on the equipment the businesses use as well.
Just so. I especially enjoy the liberal (but not in a good way) use of scare quotes Logue tries to get away with:
Yeah. It’s as if “physics” suggests that “gravity” causes objects to fall towards the center of the Earth, and not because
Jesus sucksthe Lord Makes It So.are just asking for someone like Mike Stark to do a “Calling All Wingnuts” version for them. Though I wonder if there’s anything racist or sexist or homophobic enough for them to say that would actually get them fired.